Heidi
Shortly after I met Heidi I was talking with my mom when she remarked that she thought it was great how failed love relationships did not seem to discourage me from starting up new ones. By her count I'd already been through 4 serious relationships, Donna, Dottie, Cyd, and Kathy. I hadn't thought about it. I knew a couple of people who, after a failed relationship, became more guarded about getting involved again. That was not me. I think one reason may be that I don't think of relationships that end as necessarily failures. I also am not one to look too far back or forward. I tend to live in the current week. And maybe most of all, I find the feeling of falling and being in love so intoxicating and marvelous that I could not see where past experiences would keep me from doing it again. Is there a greater feeling or a bigger high in life than falling in love with someone who is also falling in love with you? Not for me anyway. So why would I close myself off from that?
My last post was a story about Heidi's mom, Jenny. I thought it's time to write more about Heidi herself. Kris not withstanding, Heidi was probably my all time favorite best friend. She has a fabulous sense of humor and, like me, finds humor in everything with nothing being off base. For me she was a kindred spirit. I can't express strongly enough how much I like the person that is Heidi. We were really more best friends than lovers, although we were both. I still miss not seeing or spending time with Heidi.
I met Heidi in late '83 and as I've mentioned previously we quickly hit it off and were soon seeing each other regularly. Heidi grew up in San Francisco. She went to college in Chico after which she returned home to San Francisco. Because rents in SF were not cheap (Have they ever been?) she moved back in with her mom after college.
When Heidi was a teenager, maybe 14 or 15, she was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. The doctors wanted to operate but her mom, Jenny, who was a nurse, was not comfortable with the state of medical expertise in that kind of a procedure at that time. Results from this type of surgery were not the best and the survival rate was not ideal either. A decision was made to wait on the operation until either outcomes improved or the operation became necessary. The hope being that significantly more knowledge and experience would be gained in the meantime. Not having the operation meant Heidi had to be cautious and do her best to keep from getting too, for lack of a better word, excited to minimize the possibility of the aneurysm rupturing. She had to live with this condition all through high school. This was no small task for a teenager in any high school and Heidi attended a public city high school. She had to live with the threat that a rupture could happen at any time.
Heidi made it through high school. She graduated and went off to college at Chico State. Finally while attending Chico the time came for the operation. I don't remember exactly what triggered it, but I think there was a rupture. Jenny had Heidi brought down to SF in an ambulance for an immediate operation. When Heidi woke up from the operation she was not able to move anything on the left side of her body. Heidi then went through an extensive rehabilitation program on the entire left side of her body and then had to relearn to walk. Heidi worked very hard and got well over 90% of her left side function back. In fact it looked like 100%, but if you knew her well or watched her very closely, you could see that when she walked she was slightly more heavy footed on her left side as she drops her left foot when walking at the very end of her step. It's not really noticeable unless you look carefully for it. The one thing that she lost that did not return, was her left peripheral vision. Heidi clearly did a great job as I've known two other people who went through the same procedure a number of years after Heidi and neither recovered nearly as fully as she did.
A result of all this was that Heidi took life head-on and never took it or herself too seriously. She was better at keeping things in perspective than probably anyone I have ever met. She could get mad or scared and hurt like everyone but she didn't over-react. She also easily laughed at herself. With the lose of the left peripheral vision she would occasionally bang her left shoulder on something when walking such as a sign post on the street when she had to move to the side to let someone pass by. It somewhat frustrated her but she would laugh at her inability to see the post. I can especially appreciate this now, as being in my 70's I find myself bumping into more and more things and it frustrates the heck out of me and I can see the thing I am bumping into.
Heidi worked at the Recreation Center for The Handicapped (The Rec Center) AKA the Janet Pomeroy Center. The Rec Center sits between the San Francisco Zoo and Lake Merced. As you probably can guess by the name of the place while it may be a rewarding place to work, it was not exactly a high paying job. It was close to Heidi's mom's house which was handy. Heidi didn't drive due to her left peripheral vision issue so she was dependent on MUNI (San Francisco municipal transportation system), or the kindness of others, to get around.
As our relationship developed Heidi started spending more and more time at my place, often enough so that she was keeping some things there, like toiletries and a change of clothes. Heidi really wanted to move out of her mom's and it wasn't long before we started discussing the idea that she just move in with me since she was at my place all the time anyway. I was living in a studio apartment, that had a main room a small kitchen, a bath, and a closet. It was on the north side of Golden Gate Park on the corner of 28th Ave. and Cabrillo. While it was not as close to the Rec Center as Heidi's mom's place it was not too bad of a commute on MUNI from my place.
My next door neighbors' apartment next door was a large one bedroom place on the corner of the building with two large bay windows. They told me that they were going to move. I talked with my landlady and arranged to move in when they left. Once I moved in, Heidi decided to move in with me. She didn't come empty handed. Heidi had a real bed. I had been using a futon for my bed. She also had a nice Sony receiver. My old receiver was on it's last legs and was starting to have issues shorting out every now and then. Her moving in was great timing as I was always playing music but needless to say, it was Heidi herself that was the real attraction. Her mom, Jenny, seemed to take the decision in stride. I don't remember if Jenny actually came over to look at the place but somehow she knew my place did not have curtains on any of the windows including those big bay windows. Within a few days Heidi came home with curtains for the windows from her mom. I think Jenny made them herself. They were light and airy so they let some light filter in through them. They were perfect for me as I like having light come in. I did keep them open most of the time but if they'd been heavy I probably would never have closed them.
So I was in love again and living with my new girlfriend Heidi. I guess the real question was am I really ready this time, am I truly clear of Donna? All I knew for sure was I loved Heidi and loved having her around.
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